Evercade A to Z: Solaris

With how long the Atari 2600 stuck around — and its position in the early days of the games business — it’s no surprise that games from its latter days bear little to no resemblance to its launch titles.

There are few games in which this is more apparent than Solaris, the official follow-up to Star Raiders on the 2600. But not the sequel to Star Raiders on the Atari 8-bit; that was just called Star Raiders II. Also, just to confuse matters, both Star Raiders II and Solaris were originally intended to be licensed games based on the movie The Last Starfighter, but for one (mostly Tramiel-shaped) reason or another, neither ever happened.

Fortunately, we can still enjoy Solaris for ourselves today. Check out my writeup for more thoughts, enjoy the video below and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

4 thoughts on “Evercade A to Z: Solaris”

  1. I get such nostalgia when I hear 2600 audio. I never actually played this one when it was my primary console though. It really is quite a marvel to look at. It seems a lot larger and less simplistic than a fair few titles I remember enjoying on the system.

    1. That’s likely because it’s from the console’s “second wind” after 1986, when Atari decided to try and resurrect the console after failing with the 5200, and getting the 7800 to market two years too late to compete against the NES. Stick to what you’re good at, I guess! 🙂

      1. Crikey, in 86, I would have been 2. It likely is to do with timing though. My brother and I inherited a 2600 around 1990 (I think). It had a ton of cartridges with it, but it was hard to find too many new ones in shops. I know we got Title Match Pro Wrestling new from Toys R Us, but all other purchases were car boot fair jobs I think. We had more luck with the Master System, even though we got one after the Mega Drive released. Shops just seemed to have abandoned Atari by then.

Share your thoughts. Be nice!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.